Through the garden gate

Jim and Carolyn Arth’s garden features welcoming spots to sit or wide pathways to walk and enjoy the tranquil atmosphere.

The Arths’ large gardens welcome guests to take a stroll from the deck onto the meandering walkways.

A giant hosta at the home of Jim and Carolyn Arth.

Jim and Carolyn Arth of Glen Carbon will open their gardens from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 20, as part of the annual garden tour sponsored by Madison County Extension and Education Foundation, with support of the University of Illinois Extension Master Gardeners program. Jim is shown in the gardens he tends passionately.

GLEN CARBON — Individually-designed gardens that reflect eight different homeowner’s character, ingenuity and love of gardening will be featured in the University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener program’s annual event.

Take the home of Jim and Carolyn Arth in Glen Carbon, for example. The couple bought the home 25 years ago, and Jim Arth said he started basically from scratch what are now extensive gardens and walkways that have become a passion that he lovingly tends on a daily basis.

On the tour for the first time, the gardens feature the fruit of Arth’s labor that includes not only the plants themselves, but also the walkways, the birdhouses and the deck, which serves as a centerpiece where family and friends can enjoy the flora, along with the fauna that it attracts. The self-guided garden tour will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 20 — rain or shine. The gardens can be toured in any order. Cameras are welcome. Tickets cost $12 in advance or $15 the day of the tour at the Stephenson House. Children age 10 and younger are free.

“It’s a natural habitat for cardinals, and last year, we counted at least 19 pairs that lived here,” he said.

A large percentage of the pie-shaped, three-quarter acre yard is made up of flower beds filled with a cornucopia of flowers and plants, including more than 200 hostas, Rose of Sharon, wild ginger, red leaf basil, creeping Jenny, a variety of grasses, peonies, a cranberry bush, an almond tree, a Chinese dogwood, and dozens and dozens of other plants and foliage that seem to thrive in the primarily shady environment.

Arth sticks mainly to perennials, but adds a few annuals in various containers here and there. Huge potted geraniums “winter” in a greenhouse he added by converting a purchased sun room that he attached to the house to keep annuals in the off season, and to nurture new cuttings and plant starts. He buys compost and mixes it with a good garden soil, creating his own recipe that has definitely done the trick.

He attributes his green thumb to his father, who was a farmer in Troy, Ill. And as an art major in college, Arth’s creativity is apparent in the overall design of the gardens, as well as the added touches and accoutrements and his reuse of resources.

Much of the garden’s “trimmings” are repurposed materials, like the bricks lining the driveway that were once a part of Maryville Grade School. Borders for flower beds are pieces of broken concrete that once paved sidewalks around town. What started existence as a yellow straw purse now serves as a residence for one of the many families of birds that live in the Arths’ backyard. What Arth calls a “living wall” was constructed from used shutters that were discarded by their previous owner.

“Finding things to repurpose and incorporate in the garden is like a treasure hunt for me,” he said.

Arth is retired from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and though the gardens were started while he was still working, retirement has afforded him much more time to devote to their development and maintenance. Arth said his wife loves the gardens, too, and would like to be at his side toiling in the dirt. When she eventually retires from her job at Memorial Hospital in Belleville, he fully expects her to join him in the gardens.

“Every day, I go out after breakfast and spend a few hours. I’m at least picking up sticks and weeding, and I water in zones, covering a zone each day, then it’s time to start over,” he said.

And he always has a few new ideas to try (many that come from his wife), or a new plant to add.

“I consider the gardens an ongoing project,” he said.

Also on the tour is the Col. Benjamin Stephenson House garden at 409 S. Buchanan St. in Edwardsville, where a raffle of container gardens will be held. Raffle tickets cost $1 each, or six for $5. Winners will be drawn at 2 p.m. The Stephenson house also will feature a free demonstration on container gardening at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, June 20 — rain or shine.presented by a U of I Extension master gardener.

Six other gardens in Glen Carbon will be featured on the tour, each with its own unique beauty, charm and design.

Tickets are available at The Bank of Edwardsville on Vandalia Street in Edwardsville, Alton, and Maryville Road in Granite City; Creekside Gardens in Collinsville; Edwardsville Public Library; Glen Carbon Centennial Library; Market Basket in Edwardsville, Godfrey and Troy; and University of Illinois Extension offices at 901 Illinois Ave., Waterloo, and 1 Regency Plaza Drive, Suite 200 in Collinsville.

Visit the Madison-Monroe-St. Clair Unit website at web.extension.illinois.edu/mms or call 618-939-3434 for more information.